Self-evaluation and the evaluation of choice alternatives.

The focuses on self-evaluation and the evaluation of choice alternatives. The tendency for a person, when making a decision, to crease the value of the chosen alternative relative to a nonchosen one has been well documented in a number of experiments investigating manifestations of post decisional dissonance. This change in relative value of the alternatives is conceived of as an attempt by the person to minimize the regret ass sociated with having given up desirable features of the non-chosen alternative or having acquired undesirable features of the chosen one this "dissonance effect" is thus seen as the result of instrumental cognitive work which serves to justify the choice. If, however, researchers assume that the person has a positive evaluation of his ability to make the choice, researchers may also conceive of this effect as an affirmation or confirmation of his self-ability estimate. He had a prior and, in most of the research, only a cursory evaluation of the choice alternatives. In choosing, he exercised his ability in the act of weighing the relative value of the alternatives.